Hello, travellers!
It’s been a while between drinks, so I thought it might time for an update! We’ll talk writing, my quitting social media (if you even noticed!) and the benefits this has had to my art. And lastly, we’ll talk about why art, right now, matters so much.
The Novel
Work is going strong on the main novel, which now has a new title: Do Not Go Gently (previously Discordia). It hasn’t been without its challenges, however. I was forced to take an unscheduled break around September due to unprecedented changes in my family that urgently required my attention. Writing just wasn’t on the cards: my mental energy was depleted and my motivation to create was momentarily snuffed out. It was a struggle just trying to keep my own head above water. This set me back a good four months or so, though I am happy to report I am back on track. I’m writing almost if not every day, and I am loving it again.
The long gap, however, resulted in needing to go back to the start and read through everything again so I could catch myself up. Reading was all it was supposed to be: skimming without judgement or editoralising. (Ha, dream on.) I found myself doing some edits/rewrites as I read, though not as obsessively as I have done in the past. I’m getting better at that. But reading those middle chapters heading into the second act was like driving electrified rail-spikes into my body. I’m serious – reading those passages that seemed on point at the time of writing, only to hate them now with such a passion that it caused almost physical pain (bit like a stigmata). That was demoralising. But first drafts are supposed to be shit. It’s just that I, like with many other things, still struggle to accept that.
In short, there is still much work to do, but I’m chipping away at a regular pace now. I’ve just had to accept that whether I like it or not, I work at a slow pace. I know, I’m obsessive. I’m trying not to be a perfectionist. I just want to be thorough. I want to produce something as beautiful as it is dark; something you, you, can enjoy, possibly even love. But you can’t rush art. And God help me, neither can I.
The greatest challenge will be the necessary restructuring to reflect the evolution of ideas – some revisions to the old corkboard (by which I mean Scrivener) to clean up the plot threads and beats originally mapped out. I love this shit – it’s just taxing! And it’s not fun having to tear the manuscript apart to fix it. There’s so much uncertainty and it’s just an immense job. It’s one thing to kill your darlings – it’s another to rip them apart into a gory mess! I would love to have the full manuscript finished by the end of 2026, but whether I manage that is anyone’s guess. My track record isn’t so great. I have so many other shiny new stories and ideas I want to play with. I would like to have some new work in the pipeline when it comes time to shop Do Not Go Gently around, to avoid such long gaps between publications in the future.
Art and All the Shiny Things
It’s probably not helping that, like a magpie or a raven collecting every shiny thing, I find myself dabbling deeper in my artistic hobbies outside of writing. In no small irony, it was deleting all my distracting social media apps that freed up the time and mental RAM to reconnect with my other artistic hobbies in the first place. But after reading Amie McNee’s revolutionary book We Need Your Art (and her manifesto, I Don’t Want A Job!), I didn’t want to limit my creativity to just writing. That is my main thing, sure – but sometimes I want to make art without the same level of pressure. The world needs us to shine, now more than ever, and playing and producing art (however awful) is a spiritual transcendent experience, especially if you can see and appreciate the gift of failure as I am coming to. I’m grateful I haven’t lost any time for my writing with these side quests – I just haven’t gained any extra time!
But like the best RPGs, a good side quest is often what makes life worth living. I’m finding graphic design/digital art and nature photography to be quite rewarding right now. It’s so fun to just go out there and learn and make mistakes and just be shit with no consequence! I’ve been taking some rad photos and playing with them in Affinity Pixel to make some deliciously unsettling (of course) edits.
Choosing Art Over Social Media
Going back a moment, I’ve been absent from social media for almost two months now. Social media has been such an incredible waste of my time on earth. I don’t feel like my life benefits at all from my being there.
So I decided to conduct an experiment: to see if I could live without it for a period. I didn’t wipe my accounts entirely; I simply deleted the apps, keeping only Messenger for emergencies or if any friends did actually want to reach out. (Some interesting results on that, about which I have theories, to be shared perhaps another time.)
I didn’t set a time-frame, which could very well have doomed my experiment to fail. Luckily, it didn’t. I found myself more present, more creatively attuned that I had been in years. I had more time on my hands than I could recall ever having in the prior decade. Like cutting out smoking and vaping, I found I could breathe again.
I don’t know if I will go back. Perhaps the call of humanity will finally reach me and I will begrudgingly shuffle back towards society in its digital fortress. Maybe morbid curiosity will lure me back to witness rather than any real human need. I don’t know. All I know is I’m happy right now. I’ve reclaimed so much time and energy being away from the chattering cyclops that used to devour my thoughts and make me so hungry for validation. I’m experiencing the world again how I expect it feels for a newborn: as if I’m seeing so many things for the first time. Perhaps in some ways I am.
I’ve always loved the idea of possessing for myself the mystique of the writer of yore, where your work was your interaction with the world; your message, your argument, your proof. When you died, your diaries or your fragments revealed the remainder of your story, and then boom – finished. You had an end. You didn’t need to make yourself available on social media 18hr of the day or constantly do interviews or reels or whatever, plugging your content endlessly, giving away a little bit of yourself one piece at a time until there’s nothing left. (If you’re a creative who loves this way of life, no judgement, best wishes if it works for you!) I have found, however, that as gregarious as I can be, I don’t have the spirit for it, personally.
I have no interest in begging and scraping for followers and likes, panhandling with so many others on the bridge to success like an army of starving lemmings. Success means something different to me. Your tribe will find you. The word is immortal and travels as it ever did. If people find me, they find me. If they, you, want to know me, come find me in my words. See my message and argument in my novels and stories and poetry. (And perhaps a sliver extra here and there in my blogs.)
I just have to finish the damn things first, don’t I?
There is beauty everywhere, in the light and darkness both. I think I have finally found the balance in abandoning social media and embracing art more wholeheartedly than ever before. Maybe I’ll see you somewhere amongst it.
You know where to find me. 🙂
Until next time, friends, readers, fellow travellers –
Marcus
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